Today in the history of astronomy, the great popularizer of astronomy is born.

| Published: November 9, 2026

As a member of the Voyager imaging team, Carl Sagan suggested the infamous "Pale Blue Dot" photo, taken on Feb. 14, 1991 by Voyager 1. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Nobody did more to popularize astronomy than American astronomer Carl Sagan , who was born Nov. 9, 1939, in New York. The landmark 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage , which he cowrote and narrated, has been viewed by more than half a billion people. He also wrote popular science books, including The Dragons of Eden , Pale Blue Dot , and the novel Contact , which was turned into a motion picture.

But Sagan was no slouch scientifically. He predicted that Venus’ temperature should be above the melting point of lead due to a runaway greenhouse effect.…